PAS, DAP: 'We stand by Anwar'

PKR’s sister components in Pakatan Rakyat today reaffirmed their support for parliamentary opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim despite a steady trickle of the coalition’s parliamentarians jumping the PKR ship.

"We stand behind Anwar," said DAP national vice-chairperson and Kepong member of Parliament Tan Seng Giaw (right).

He said the issue to reconsider who held the parliamentary opposition leadership ‘will never come up’.

PAS National Unity Committee chairperson and Parit Buntar parliamentarian Mujahid Yusuf Rawa (bottom, left) echoed Tan’s views:

"Actually we in Pakatan are not really interested to speak of this issue.

"We stand firm behind Anwar as the Pakatan leader in parliament. Even if more defections happen, it will change nothing," he said.

The real issue here, Mujahid added, was BN’s lost two-thirds parliamentary majority.

"BN is actually trying to regain the two-thirds majority that they lost. And this in one of the ways they are trying to do it. Not via defections to it but by independents who are ‘friendly’ to the ruling party."

BN currently is eight seats short of a two-thirds majority in parliament.

As for the status of the opposition, with today’s resignation of Nibong Tebal MP Tan Tee Beng from PKR, the parliamentary seat tally is now 28 for PKR, 28 for DAP and 23 for PAS making it 79 seats for Pakatan Rakyat versus BN’s 137 seats.

Of the remaining six parliamentary seats, two are held by the Sapp in Sabah, one by the PSM and the remaining three by independents - Mohd Zahrain Hashim and Tan Tee Beng formerly of PKR and Ibrahim Ali who contested on PAS ticket in 2008 and then shortly after declared himself to be an independent.

With PKR and DAP both holding 28 seats each, the position of Anwar as the opposition supremo in parliament may be called into question should there be more defections from PKR.